


wake up

by notthelasttime



Series: rêveur [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: (maybe), Canonical Character Death, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Haunting, M/M, Nyx is still very dead I'm sorry, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Tags May Change, Warnings May Change, probably angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthelasttime/pseuds/notthelasttime
Summary: Laying in bed with arms wrapped around him, he could feel the rise and fall of the chest underneath his head, could feel the rumble of his voice when he spoke.But he couldn't hear a heartbeat.





	wake up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flavoredmagpie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=flavoredmagpie).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo. when i'd written [ a dream](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13051086) there was a kind of barebones idea there for an extended fic and some ~~masochists~~ said they'd be interested so here we are
> 
> i'm keeping this as a series instead of adding chapters on to a dream because i just kind of like that as the stand alone that it is, not to mention i don't know where this is going to go and there's a lot of potential for it to be........... not happy

It started in the little things.

A chair pulled out from the table, far enough for him to bump in to, a glass on the counter that he knew he washed and put away, shoes sitting in the middle of the hallway.

Blindness did not make for messy habits, and Ignis had never been anything but organized, disciplined. One thing could be excused perhaps, something that slipped his mind, an accidental lapse in his usual painstaking cleanliness. He wasn't perfect, despite Noct's teasing that he was, back when he was alive and young. Mistakes happened in tired minds and Ignis had been tired, so, so tired. But the devil was in the details.

Details were what Ignis focused on, what he had be trained to focus on, noticing what others would not, picking up patterns and seeing the importance of the trivial. It mattered because it wasn't just a chair that hadn't been properly pushed back into place, but it was a spot Ignis didn't sit in. His new apartment at the Citadel, tinier but similar in layout to what he'd had back before the fall of Insomnia, back when things were ok. And if now was then that seat would have been Nyx's. 

Irrelevent. 

_wake up_

But he never left dishes out. Didn't like them sitting around, never did, but if he absolutely had to let something sit and wait before he could clean it, it went in the sink, not the counter top. Nyx had always left his dishes sitting on the countertop but-

No. Coincidence and nothing more. Because he hadn't been sleeping well and the task of cleaning up a forgotten city, left in ruins and ruled by demons for 10 years had fallen on the shoulders of the forgotten fossils that remained from a time passed. Cor had called on him some time after the dawn and Ignis had agreed. Because Gladio agreed, because without purpose he had lost track of too much time, because if there was anything he feared it was uselessness and he very quickly felt himself becoming _useless_.

A vision of his future. Moving somewhere far away, maybe Tenebrae, somewhere in the greenery away from the city, somewhere lonely where he was old and blind and useless.

_wake up_

Better to do something while he had the chance. Even if it meant coming back to a city full of ghosts.

_wake up_

The shoes. Sitting in the middle of the hallway despite the fact that he always took his shoes off at the door yet he'd tripped over them and cursed something foul. Not just any shoes though, his boots, the sturdy leather boots that were standard issue for most Glaives, that he'd worn with his Crownsguard uniform while marching Noctis to his death, that had been shoved in the back of his closet since he first moved in.

There was a memory there, similarly tucked away in the back of his mind from years on years ago. Nyx spending the night. The _first_ time he spent the night, and Ignis had been all anticipation and nerves while they stumbled their way into his bedroom dropping clothes along the way. He'd crept out of bed the next morning, eyes bleary while he rubbed at them, already anxiety sinking in at the back of his mind wondering what this _meant_ and if Nyx felt the same. He couldn't think about it with a head fogged with cob webs, and so had shuffled his way to the kitchen to start coffee and maybe take a moment to think and plan, only to trip over the clothes left in the hallway, the pile that was Nyx's jacket and boots. 

He'd laughed something awful, snorting at his clumsiness in embarrassment after crashing to the ground, and hid his mouth behind his hands to try and stifle it, to stay quiet, but as always with hysterics the attempt to suppress them only makes it worse. So of course Nyx heard him and woke up. 

Ever the soldier, ready for the worst, Nyx still half asleep and naked as the day he was born, ready to fight some unknown enemy just to find Ignis still on the floor and choking back laughter.

Nyx helped him up off the ground, ribbing him for clumsiness but he softened the blow with kisses, laughing and saying, _I thought someone was breaking in_. Arms around his waist, Nyx looking at him with the kind of fondness he hadn't ever seen before and Ignis was smitten all over again, feeling happy and warm and oh so very much _in love_. 

10 years ago. 10 years passed and Nyx wasn't here and some pair of boots in the hallway didn't change that. His mind was drawing ridiculous conclusions, lack of sleep just tiredness and lack of sleep.  

He'd had a nightmare, or something like it, some days ago. Not monsters or demons or the usual suspects, but something mundane that had filled him with nothing but a sense of unease and dread. Like he knew something terrible was coming and he couldn't stop it, a feeling that stayed with him when he woke. He was driving in the rain, back, back, back to the Insomnia of before. Dread around every corner, every stop light and every new street, the Prince in the back seat staring out the window. A busy intersection and a bus was running a red light and Ignis watched it happen in slow motion, saw it coming directly for him on his left, waited for the impact that would surely crush him, but instead

_wake up_

a voice at his ear. He was awake.

Relationships have their own language. Ignis remembered his well. Unthinking and shaken from the dream, he rolled over, reach out into the dark. Nyx usually slept on his right side, facing away. Ignis remembered it well. Sometimes he'd be there, in the Citadel apartment when Ignis was working late, Nyx already asleep in bed. And all Ignis had to do was nudge up against his back and even still mostly asleep Nyx would turn and wrap around him, like he was trying to cover as much of Ignis's body as he could with his own. There was something to be said about touch between them. Ignis had always been so particular about his personal space, keeping that comfortable buffer around himself, keeping his hands to himself. Nyx was different. Nyx had always been different. Ignis woke from his unsettling dream and reached out for the body he knew would be there, and Nyx reached back.

It took him until the next morning to realize why that was wrong.

He just hadn't been sleeping well. He was tired, that was all.

He would ignore it.

_Ignis_

Couldn't hear it.

_baby_

It wasn't real.

_can't you hear me anymore?_

When he was alone but he swore he heard a laugh from the other room, when he was cooking and for a moment, just a second it sounded liked the door opened and he heard Nyx call out, _smells good_ , like he had so many times before. Wasn't real. Not real.

Not when he was laying in bed and Nyx was there with him, bed dipping from his weight, the heat from his body, the rasp of his voice when he tried to get Ignis to talk to him.

Not real.

_wake up_

You're not real.

Laying in bed with arms wrapped around him, he could feel the rise and fall of the chest underneath his head, could feel the rumble of his voice when he spoke, but he couldn't hear a heartbeat.

"You're not real," Ignis said to the quiet of the room, hating the way he could hear the uncertainty in his voice, hear the shakiness of it as he tried to convince himself that the senses he had come to rely on were wrong, what they told him was there was wrong.

A pause before he got his response, cutting through the endless dark.

"Aren't I?"

 

 


End file.
